It's literally better quality than 95% of TV shows and they do it without a budget in the millions. The whole atmosphere of the videos is just amazing.
If I end up living through the apocalypse, my survival strategy moving forward will basically be to find this guy and follow him. Hail John the Mild-mannered! Grater of nutmeg! Last bastion of humanity! Chief of the Homestead!
LOL LOL , I,M with you on that, but I too do out door or fire cooking, I be a baker and cook or a chef like my mom and dad. They both were bakers, pastry makers, and bread makers. I grew up in the kitchen, watching, helping, listening and now I do my self... I cook in fire pits, fire places, smokers, bbq,s and just hot coals and propane ovens, wood burning cook stoves.. Everybody who loves to eat tasty foods,, they all love my foods.. I use spices, wines, beer and such. I am getting hungry just talking about it. LOL LOL. I Have a recipe for baked beans that has seven types of beans. Very yummie. Keeps you coming back for more after every bowl.. It's a side dish at get togethers with family, but it's the first pot that is gone as well.. it effects everybody else the same way. You just can't get enough. LOL LOL 😆🤠🤠🤠🤠
Hitting the like button before you've even watched the video because you know EVERY video produced by Jas. Townsend & Son is top-tier viewing and wholesomeness at it's best! 👍
Given this is the second winter there would have been a barn and a root cellar for food storage. The barn would have had cows and chickens. The fields would have been harvested, and there should have been hay for at least the milk cow. Of course this is the 21st century America and you had other things to do , but it's an awesome video and I really want to try this recipe but would it be acceptable to purchase barley?
@@covishen A *lot* of (probably the majority imo) of the people who follow Townsends and try the recipes buy everything we need for the recipes. Jon probably buys a lot of them as well.
In the Highlands, each family would have one or more “ceiste “, a big wooden box inside of which they would store their sacks of grain and other preserved foods, to keep out the critters and to keep some things from freezing. The ceiste was larger than a blanket box or dowry chest, large enough to store a year’s harvest of grain. Gotta put that barley somewhere.......
@@lindatisue733 hi there, as a city slicker in Madrid I don't feel qualified to answer that sorry. I have been on some mushroom picking in the mountains here and I do get whatever herbs I know when I'm hikking but for real foraging I don't really know. All I can say is the variety of landscapes and climates in this country is astounding, from desert to alpine mountains and everything in-between, so there must be a huge range of potential foraging goodies. I'm actually interested now that you've mentioned it! Thanks for the comment and inspiration! Sweden if it's anything like Scotland (where I'm from originally) must have some excellent berries?
Hello neighbor. Here in Portugal we are also under the same "storm" but I live too close to the ocean to have snow... Only the freezing temperatures and no joy :(
@@inessantos2217 Ay I'm sorry to hear that. This time of year is difficult at the best of times and with the situation now it's so much worse. Let's hope this all blows over so we can get back to normal soon. I want to gorge myself on the Portuguese bacalao I've been hearing so much about. I was supposed to go on trip from Galicia to Faro last summer so you can imagine that I can't wait to visit.
@Lailandi adventures yep.. We'll be in lockdown again by Thursday so I suppose that some could is good to make us feel better indoors. Hope you enjoy that. I grew up between Galicia and Asturias as well hope you enjoy your trip still this year
Yes! that was an authentic leaky roof! Reminds me of the the episode he did on the poor where when it rained the family had to hide under the hay rick because they had NO roof on their cabin for want of nails! :(
@@noniefuss - think I'd be using some animal hide somewhere in that layer, specifically to prevent that problem! Grease it up really well and it'd be great! Or, if you had a lot of beeswax, treat big sheets of linen and lay that out in the roof layer. That would probably be cheaper, actually. Hide is too valuable.
Your B roll cinematography is off the charts great guys. I have been around since the fried chicken episode and it's been amazing seeing you guys improve your quality. You can tell you love this channel.
"New" cook book found~ it was found in the attic of the Pownalborough Court House Museum. The court house was built in 1760. The engravings/images in the cookbook were done by Paul Revere...soooo cooool
@@goatkidmom No, not online. It was discovered in the Fall 2020 : It states Maj. Samuel Goodwin-Brook inside cover, Property of Abigail Goodwin/Charlestown, Engravings of how to truss and spit fowl by Paul Revere. Writer was Susannah Carter maybe titled The Frugal Housewife. It could have been first published in England, it states that this cookbook was published in the U.S. The Lincoln County News is our local paper. The Pownalborough Courthouse is a historic court house at 23 Courthouse Road in Dresden, Maine, USA. Built in the early 1760s, it was the first county courthouse for Lincoln County, which was established in 1760
I do this to some extent in a modern setting! During the warm growing season (which is long, seeing as I'm in Alabama) I can and dry and preserve and pickle everything possible, so that we can enjoy it during the winter. I do it more for the taste. A winter tomato just doesn't taste very good. So I make as many good things out of them (there's a bookshelf to hold the shelf-stable things, and a spot in the fridge for the meat preserves) as I can, and we feast when it's cold. I also HATE being cold, so winter and SAD can be rough. Opening the jar of roasted tomatoes that I remember making in August, when it was hot and the sun kissed me, can really help. The jars bring memories, and nourishment for my diminished soul, as well as for my cold body. Plus, I can go longer between grocery trips, and that means less interaction with humans and more time in my comfy pants and blankets!
Your description was so poetic! The preservation of flowers & herbs gives me much the same feeling- & there are so many ways! Not just salting (brine or dry salt) or drying- people can preserve stuff in sugar/ honey, oil/ butter, vinegar- there’s also smoking (one of the best, IMO- though I’m too povo to have a smoker... & I live in a tiny unit) - I am endlessly fascinated by the ingenuity of those who came before us...
This year I canned tomato sauce, a form of V8 juice and a tomato based mixture of onions, peppers, and celery to use as a soup or stew base. Right now I'm dehydrating celery, onions, green peppers, spinach and ginger to use as spices in meals. I'm in Texas and am prepared just in case we have another February ice storm like last year!
Once upon a time almost all clothing was custom made and fit, and that is why they look and feel comfy. They look rather nice, too, on fellas of all manner of shapes and sizes. Same goes with women's clothing.
"Fun" fact: more people died in February/March if they had no animals to slaughter because food storage ran out or had loss, and nothing was growing yet of any substance.
@@happy_mask_salesman "Fun" fact: For each thing "everyone knows" by the time they're an adult, each day there are around 10,000 people in the US alone learning about it for the first time. Also, the above comment isn't even really a common fact. xkcd.com/1053/
@@suzannehartmann946 Absolutely! I recommend the BBC Farm series if you haven't seen them (they cover 1600's to early 1900's). I think the first one is called Tales From Green Valley.
"The only store you've got is to go out into the woods and go hunting, and that works but it's very difficult to survive that way." Tell me about it. I was hunting whenever I had the chance between mid October and the last day of December with either a modern muzzleloader or modern rifle. I only ever got 1 shot, and I missed it. The best I had been able to do since September is about half a dozen squirrels and 3 or 4 fish. Don't depend on hunting alone for survival. Learn to grow a garden or raise livestock.
And even if you’re an amazing shot with tons of game around, rabbit starvation (malnutrition from lack of fat, even though you’re eating lots of lean protein) is a serious problem.
Do take into account that the fauna used to be a lot bigger than it is now. We've expanded our infastructure and hunted most of it down to a miniscule level, so even while we have modern arms today that makes the act of killing a lot easier, finding the prey in the first place is a lot harder. Same goes for fishing. We've practically emptied the ocean with our trawlers
With some species, it is true that we have reduced numbers. However, other species are thriving. We have more whitetail deer in America now than we have ever had. Squirrels are almost as common in some urban places as people are. We have more wild hogs than the environment can sustain. The idea that there is not any game to be killed in not true unless you live in the middle of a big city. Even then, there are some animals around, just not the ones that are commonly hunted for food.
Nathan Pumphrey, agree, around here there’s much on the hoof for trapping and hunting. Not likely to have shortages. Also local farmers sell directly and donate much.
I do wonder how much the difference in hunting culture has changed things. Sitting and waiting much more than stalking and tracking, going for single species rather than hunting what you can find, the much greater pickiness in terms of species eaten, etc.
I am so glad to see Ryan moving more into a cooking host role, I have felt for a long time that he has the skills and passion to be good at it! Congratulations Ryan!
Next time I ask one of the kids to get me ice water and they give me that 'look'... I'm gonna hand them a hand axe and a bucket and be like, "No, not from the fridge...from the creek." I'll bet it will cease to be an issue after a couple trips.😁
Simple, filling and tasty. My mouth is watering! (My little dog always knows when I am thinking about food. She came an sat down with an expectant look on her face while I watched this)
My birthday was the 7th of January. My wife handed me a box on the 9th and said "I got this for your birthday, but misplaced it". Inside was the journal of Nicholas Cresswell. Thanks Jana (my wife) and thanks Townsends' for making it available.
@@SongbirdAlom It's funny you mention that. Up here in Canada we have a gum called Thrills that's flavoured with rose water. The motto is literally "It still tastes like soap!".
April was called Starving Month. The supplies that were laid up to tide them over the winter were used up and the spring harvest of May was not yet in.
this doesn't make sense. if you ran out of supplies at the same time each year, you would just start prepping more. I also can't find any evidence to support it. where are you getting this information?
Countries like North Korea where governments turn a blind eye to self raised crops and hunted meats. The Northern and Chinese section along the border is freezing, in the -30 to 40 degrees Farenheit. If you don't have enough money or resources because of a poor year working on the market or have unexpected cold snaps it can easily tip you over the edge to death.
@@chriswright8114 It's a matter of being able to grow and preserve at least four to six months' worth of food ahead. The late Winter and early Spring are the time you find out if you have enough stored and/or can hunt enough to keep from starving in the cold. Little or nothing is growing then, and the young livestock are too young to butcher. Lenten fasting makes a virtue of a necessity. For an English perspective of the same situation, check out Tales from the Green Valley.
@@chriswright8114 dear WHEN THEIR IS NO STORE . And also during the great depression PEOPLE GREW A YEARS WORTH OF FOOD FOR THE HOUSE OR THEY WENT HUNGREY. PERIOD. But in early colony times or when you had your first winter.( or a bad crop year) food HAD TO BE RATION TO MAKE IT THRU THE YEAR. Oregon trail diary speak of running out of food all the time. especially the first year because of getting there late in the growing season and having to build the homestead at the same time. Also you could only grow WHAT SEED YOU BROUGHT WITH YOU.
Well, when your food options are REALLY limited to just your produce/grain stores, what your animals produce and whatever you hunt/fish... picking fresh fruit and berries (anything sweet!) must be like tasting the nectar of the gods LOL I can't imagine how wonderful a simple fresh apple tastes after a long winter.
This is definitely a treat that wouldn’t be eaten everyday, as it uses sugar that is needed for tea. It was probably a good morale booster during the hard winters.
Just being silly here, even if it's true... Stevia wouldn't be historically accurate, but it is easily dried and works well enough for tea, assuming you're not a true tea snob.
It isn't dissimilar to Rice Pudding. Brit here, my Mum always used to make one similar to this including the nutmeg and she always added a slice of orange peel to it. Interesting to see this with Barley, very nutritious and warming.
There isn't a lot of wilderness anymore, but a lot depends on how things shake out. Were I thirty years younger I would love to have a place in the country with a stable water supply and an off-grid power supply. As things stand today, living in a city is my best available option. My roommate and I need transportation and medical care you can't get consistently in a small town or more rural area, so we are here.
@@DIVeltro Understandable. If you can make a go of it and sustain yourself in the country or 'burbs, you will be better off. The reason I'm where I am is medical care. Even so, I'm setting up some garden space indoors and staying close to home as well as I can.
I don't know which was nicer Jon, the look of the food or watching you guys prepare and then enjoy it. Thanks Townsends team for all of your wonderful content. This was once again wonderful!
Great video, i love this series. Out of curiosity, did people on the frontier dig well or did they tend to fetch water from streams like you did in the beginning?
If you have reliable water nearby you might not dig a well at first. It takes a lot of work. Where I live you would find water then build the house, because water is not guaranteed.
Spending a lot of time outside this winter, I appreciate how tough our ancestors had to be and it is a mild winter. In Sweden one can still forage some rose hips, crab apples and dandelion, but not enough calories to stay alive. What can you forage now where you live?
Same here in Michigan, some roots, pine needles and bark, but it really isn't a good time of year for foraging. We have to preserve and store our foods for winter still.
plus remember they were going through a cold period around the 18th century, it was a lot colder than it had been for their ancestors a few centuries prior. all those fairytales about wolves coming to the door, that was *happening*
@@KairuHakubi i love Sir Terry Pratchett's passion for turning historical facts to fictional jokes. "When wolves came to Ankh-Morpork... And we hadn't seen meat for months"
Pine/Spruce bits and sap, sparse mushrooms, any remaining rowan berries and hawthornes, rosehips, ghost apples (frozen on the tree, half-fermenting), juniper, borage, chickweed, uhhhhhhh...honestly, most other stuff tends to be picked apart by birds, come January.
I love how youtube has transformed media, like I love how I can throw this up on my tv and pretend that there is a history channel that would actually show something this good!
@@farnorthhomested844 Usually by having a device connected to your TV that is also connected to the Internet. Some examples would be a Roku box, a fire stick or Apple TV. There is also a Google Chromecast that plays what is on your phone on the TV. The others have RU-vid apps similar to your phone. If you have a smart TV that already hasRoku or some such similar device built in it may already have a RU-vid app. Also some game systems that connect to the Internet like an Xbox One or PlayStation 4 also have RU-vid apps built in.
It is an increasing possibility that these instructional videos may become more relevant in the average person's life. Thank you for the trove of information you consistently provide!
I LOVE this channel. You know how when you find something you like and they have a backlog of videos and you have to binge watch them all? That's what I am doing with this channel !
i just found your channel and I can't get enough of it. This is great. I love learning about history and you guys take it to the next level. Thanks so much for the video's.
I've heard from a vendor at Dixon's muzzleloader festival that there were axes (basically tomahawks but with the head fitted from the top) with a characteristic spike on the back that were sold in the time period as "ice axes" but were really designed to get around trade regulations. Does anyone have any information/validation for this?
Whenever I turn on the TV or visit social media it´s always "buy this!", "you are missing out on gossip" and "people are bashing each others heads in over some random ideology" - this is one of the few channels that helps me get my sh*t together and relax a bit. Also as a historian (I specialize in ancient greece/rome though) I can say, you are doing a great job teaching me about a time period that I wasn´t interested in previously so that really speaks to the quality of your content! :D Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart
I have a question why many of the clothes you all wear dont have folded hems? Is it just because it is pain in the a*s to do by hand (believe me I know) or were clothes really worn like that? I dont know frontier history but I know european medieval history and here I have personaly seen clothes from as far as the 1200s with neatly folded hems. Someone more knowledgeable than me can probably trace it even further. Seems odd for this practice to not carry over to the american colonisation seeing how it prolongs the life of the clothes by a substantial amount
Material was very expensive here in the 16 & 1700's. Most of it came from England. I would think if you could afford a folded hem now and then, the extra was probably used for patching holes. Seams were as large as possible so they could be let out and they were also turned inside out to refresh and to make it look newer. Depending on how much money you had, clothes were basically worn until they fell apart and beyond repair.
Townsends has worked hard for years to do historical research on their clothing (which they sell on their townsends.us web site and in their print catalog). That's why it is used in several period movies and TV shows. So I think they are selling what they have found likely that people in America actually wore in the 1700s. Of course, styles and efforts would have been different in the big cities than in the countryside. Certainly, they knew of the hemming option, and would have done it that way if it made sense for them. If you phone up their shop, you can ask them about a specific item, and see if they have a different price for a hemmed versus unhemmed version. Although likely they only bother to stock what they think would have been most commonly worn.
He mentioned on a recent livestream that materials of the time period were such good quality/tight weave that they didn't have to hem them as they didn't typically fray, he's probably staying true to the no hem style but the material may not be exactly of the sort.
@@sherylhoward4831 Are you saying that people bought their own clothes rather than make and repair themselves? Like I said my knowledge lies more in older history so I'm not sure when buying clothes became common practice. I think where I am confused is where you say "afford a folded hem you use it for fixing holes" rolls of cloth doesnt come with pre-folded hems to my knowledge.
Would like to try this with oatmeal. I was raised with putting brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, raisins and canned milk in cooked oatmeal with buttered toast on side. Still to this day it's a comfort food.
Unless you have animals that are birthing little ones in this weather! I had to put the goats in a metal storage building to keep them out of the wind and ice, but the brats destroyed everything they could in the building. Heard that we may have these storms here in Texas for several winters.
@@monicaluketich3106 everything is beautiful, sounds like youre focusing on the negative. How about the new born animals thats a positive? Happiness is a choice, thank god for everything we have.
@@aresjerry I use to be an optimist, but I got older and learned that, yes it is pretty, until you have to go out in it to feed the animals, you fall on the ice or the beautiful young goats get sick and die, making my heart ache. (I lost 4 babies and a mother) Try being 65 years old, running a ranch by yourself and you get a 100 year storm and cold weather. I am a realist now.
Great way to start the new year, Jon. Thanks for another great recipe! Might be nice to see a video on root cellars and smoke houses if you haven't already done them.
Quick question guys, I noticed your dog running around in the background. Would it be common for people on the frontier to keep a dog? Companionship and protection are definitely pros to having one, but I'm sure the extra mouth to feed would be a con.
In one of Laura Ingels Wilder's books, her father comments that a family would be as good as dead without a dog on the frontier. In their case it was to ward off wolves and horse thieves.
My fist thought when you started cooking was "This kinda looks like rice-puddin, just with barley". I really imagine this dish to be very good, and probably a joy on cold winter evenings. Thanks for sharing!
You should try it! I haven't had this particular dish, of course, but I have occasionally used barley as a more nutrient dense/slow carb alternative to rice and it's actually very tasty. Nutty and flavourful, with a pleasant, firm texture.
@@raraavis7782 OH that sounds lovely! I think I only ate barley with salat so far, and I think in some type of joghurt. But it's always nice to try new things out!
Orange flower water is a bit different. Tastes most like what baby aspirin used to taste like. I think itd help a custard but its a weird ingredient, almost all aromatic with little taste until you add too much then it overwhelms the dish. It is delicious in a ramos gin fizz
I love orange flower or blossom water, also violet, rose and lavender. (Might not be a rough and tumble persons, choice out in the wilderness, but to “in townies” that were well to do, Some,enjoyed these flavored waters., tea, light cookies, ice cream and frosting and candies ....So, anybody who is interested,Google it and experiment, (it is such fun, but remember,organic no pesticide treated blooms or bark etc!)😁
I was surprised our "chef" didn't know what eau de fleur d'orange (orange flower water) was or why it was used. It's extremely common in French cooking to use flavored waters like this, specifically in desserts, like the pudding he chose, to add flavor and uniqueness to the dish. You can and will taste the difference if you omit the key ingredient. It's like omitting the vanilla from the cookie recipe.
I love watching this sort of thing to remind me to be grateful of what I have and the technological progress that makes it possible. Its also a little scary to think just how precarious our modern standard of living is and how dependent upon energy generation we are. Never a bad idea to learn how to do more with less!
I like barley. But I never thought about making an dessert type dish with it. The recipe sounds like you are making rice pudding. Without the Cinnamon and Vanilla. And if I did not say it sooner 🎉🎊 🍾Congrulations on getting to 1.5 Million.💐🎊🎉 That 1/2 Million came really fast.
Apparently I was eating historically without realizing lol. I love this custard! It's so versatile and a great base for both a complete savory meal or a sweet filling dessert.
The common food in my house lead me to this channel years ago. I looked up an ingredient (barm) for a certain bread that I couldn't find locally, and found the recipe on this channel. I'm hooked!!
I came into contact with these videos, when resarching for my book, about soldier food from the 1700 hundreds, and after the book was complet, i simply moved on with the vids, eating out of a caserole and enjoying mr. Townsend accompany my meals. Also a dear retreat during my uptearing divorce. Thank You! / Henke P.S the onion pie with eggs was super fine, indeed!
Congratulations on finishing your book, that's quite an accomplishment! Agreed, Townsends is treasured font of information for history, recipes, and charming cooking company. Cheers! :)
@@itinerantbabbs1284 Well, i think you are allowed to cheat with a modern day side of tomato ketchup! 😜 I mean, even themself leave out certain ingredients, that modern day palates dislike! 😊
First video of the year, and such striking sound and camera work! It felt as if we were walking that snowy trail with Jon, and standing across from Ryan while he cooked. Excellent editing, information, and presentation - quite looking forward to trying this dish! Always a pleasure to visit the Cabin, our favorite frontier neighbors.
Over the years, Townsends has done four or five other videos on food storage, not just the one on egg preservation. It may take some searching through the old videos on this channel to find them all. Also, note that a lot of old methods for preserving food were used because they were the best available at the time, although today we would not consider them wise because of small but real risks of getting sick from food that goes bad. So, just because Townsends has researched and videoed certain food storage historical methods, that does not mean that they or anyone would advise doing that today. Of course, things such as canning fruit and pickling vegetables and salting meat are so well known and established that at least those methods are known how to do it safely. Good luck.
Maybe you can make an episode talking about the music they would play over winter. I would imagine when trying to find something to do, music was a popular topic.
Also reading, storytelling, maybe small repairs that could be done indoors. And the women would be carding wool, spinning, weaving, and sewing. They'd also be knitting and crocheting. (The clothes had to come from somewhere.)
I bet that a lot of people in the 1700s would have experimented with whichever options they had. But for wintertimes, a preserved essence of rose or orange in water (with alcohol) would likely have kept good, while they might not have been able to get oranges or lemons at any price if they don't know someone with a tree in season. Obviously, the folks in Georgia or Florida likely had more options for more of the year than do folks in Indiana, for example.
